Why Don't More Vegans Support Clean Meat?
Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2018 11:53 pm
I'm more than half way through Paul Shapiro's book "Clean Meat" and I'm so intrigued, I can barely put the book down to focus on my studies.
Paul makes an excellent case for how "cellular agriculture" can transform the food production process and totally remove animals themselves from the equation.
Cultured meat, if made commercially viable, would be far more resource efficient, requiring up to 45% less energy, 96% less water, and 99% less land than conventional beef (Tuomisto & Mattos, 2011). Given that clean meat would put far less strain on the environment, and would require no animal suffering whatsoever, I have to wonder why so many vegans do not seem to support this technology.
My guess is that the "stricter" deontological vegans would oppose clean meats because they do not fall neatly under the definition of vegan, but I have to ask; where is the harm? If anything, the benefits far outweigh the risks.
Some vegans might instead want to put focus on plant-derived alternatives to meat, but I'm not sure plant-based alternatives will convince billions of meat eaters around the globe to give up meat. The Beyond Burger was EXCELLENT. But I was already a vegan after trying it. I'm not sure it would've convinced me to drop the real thing and become vegetarian. And that's exactly what most consumers want. The real thing. And if enough people invest in this technology we can provide them the real thing (minus the animal suffering).
Yet many vegans/animal rights activists refuse to support clean meat. They prefer to set-up in public spaces, showing ridiculous videos of animals being tortured in factory farms, thinking that this would move people to make the rational decision. Or they urge meat eaters to try plant-based "alternatives" to meat products, assuring them that they taste JUST LIKE meat.
I'm afraid most of these tactics are futile, going from personal experience and also from history. As Shapiro points out in his book, it wasn't people's concern of horses that ended their use for transportation, it was the invention of the car. The discovery of kerosene saved the whales, not animal welfarist sentiment. Lab-grown meat can do the same for the chickens, pigs, and cows of today. It can literally save lives.
What can we do to convince more vegans to support this technology?
So far in the online community, I've only seen Unnatural Vegan and Mod Vegan leading the way on this topic.
References:
Tuomisto, H. L., & Mattos, M. J. (2011). Environmental Impacts of Cultured Meat Production. Environmental Science & Technology, 45(14), 6117-6123. doi:10.1021/es200130u
Shapiro, P. (2018). Clean meat. New York: Gallery Books.
Paul makes an excellent case for how "cellular agriculture" can transform the food production process and totally remove animals themselves from the equation.
Cultured meat, if made commercially viable, would be far more resource efficient, requiring up to 45% less energy, 96% less water, and 99% less land than conventional beef (Tuomisto & Mattos, 2011). Given that clean meat would put far less strain on the environment, and would require no animal suffering whatsoever, I have to wonder why so many vegans do not seem to support this technology.
My guess is that the "stricter" deontological vegans would oppose clean meats because they do not fall neatly under the definition of vegan, but I have to ask; where is the harm? If anything, the benefits far outweigh the risks.
Some vegans might instead want to put focus on plant-derived alternatives to meat, but I'm not sure plant-based alternatives will convince billions of meat eaters around the globe to give up meat. The Beyond Burger was EXCELLENT. But I was already a vegan after trying it. I'm not sure it would've convinced me to drop the real thing and become vegetarian. And that's exactly what most consumers want. The real thing. And if enough people invest in this technology we can provide them the real thing (minus the animal suffering).
Yet many vegans/animal rights activists refuse to support clean meat. They prefer to set-up in public spaces, showing ridiculous videos of animals being tortured in factory farms, thinking that this would move people to make the rational decision. Or they urge meat eaters to try plant-based "alternatives" to meat products, assuring them that they taste JUST LIKE meat.
I'm afraid most of these tactics are futile, going from personal experience and also from history. As Shapiro points out in his book, it wasn't people's concern of horses that ended their use for transportation, it was the invention of the car. The discovery of kerosene saved the whales, not animal welfarist sentiment. Lab-grown meat can do the same for the chickens, pigs, and cows of today. It can literally save lives.
What can we do to convince more vegans to support this technology?
So far in the online community, I've only seen Unnatural Vegan and Mod Vegan leading the way on this topic.
References:
Tuomisto, H. L., & Mattos, M. J. (2011). Environmental Impacts of Cultured Meat Production. Environmental Science & Technology, 45(14), 6117-6123. doi:10.1021/es200130u
Shapiro, P. (2018). Clean meat. New York: Gallery Books.